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Space

What is a hybrid rocket motor? What advantages does it have over conventional liquid and solid propellant rocket motors? These questions point to an exciting breakthrough that occurred on December 13, 2018, when Virgin Galactic successfully launched VSS Unity on its first suborbital flight.

On October 1, 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was officially created, beginning a 60-year journey of American innovation and space exploration. While there are many (many, many!) unique NASA objects in the Air and Space collection, these six highlight milestones that shaped our nation’s quest to better understand our universe.

The National Air and Space Museum is full of ideas that defy. Ideas that defy any obstacle, ideas that defy our expectations, ideas that literally defy gravity. Follow us as we discover the remarkable, the audacious, the outrageous, the #IdeasThatDefy.

Space Shuttle Enterprise, the first space shuttle orbiter ever built, was once displayed where Discovery is today. Despite both being part of the Space Shuttle program, the two served very different purposes and tell very different stories.